Chapter 814 Sighing

As the only manufacturer in the Western world that can produce the most advanced EUV lithography machines, AS-ML has mastered the core lithography machines of extremely advanced semiconductor processes such as 5 nanometers or even 3 nanometers. However, in its development process, it has not been smooth sailing.

According to history, it is somewhat magical that before 1006, the world's semiconductor hegemon was still a company called Nikon.

In the 1980s, Nikon launched the lithography machine NSR-1010G and the commercial stepper lithography machine Stepper, becoming the leader of the semiconductor lithography machine industry in the 1980s. For a time, Japan had the style of a rising star in the technology industry.

"It is a coincidence" that in the same era, Philips of the Netherlands and a Dutch chip equipment agent jointly established AS-ML.

At the beginning of its establishment, AS-ML had only dozens of employees on paper, and the office location was also the legendary simple factory building.

Then, this unpopular company miraculously developed the first generation of step-and-scan lithography machine PAS2000 in the first year of its establishment, and successfully won market orders with it.

In the 1990s, AS-ML was directly listed on the NASDAQ in North America and the Amsterdam Stock Exchange in the Netherlands, and it was successful.

And after the successful listing, AS-ML not only made a lot of money, but also decisively repurchased all the shares from Philips, achieving complete independence in the true sense.

Then in 1004, AS-ML developed the first immersion lithography machine prototype, and successfully won orders from major international mainstream customers such as IBM and TSMC.

After becoming the world's top lithography machine giant, AS-ML once again "very lucky" received the EUV legacy.

This matter has to start from the establishment of the EUV LLC Alliance by Intel and the U.S. Department of Energy in 1997.

At that time, EUV technology was developing slowly and required too many resources, so in the "fair and open" competition, the United States finally chose AS-ML, which did not have strong technical reserves at that time, to join the EUV Alliance.

ASML thus obtained the priority use of the most advanced semiconductor technology, materials science, optics, precision manufacturing and other related technologies in the United States and even the world. At the same time, AS-ML also "knew the rules" and handed over its production and regulatory rights to Uncle Sam's government.

Over the years, the R&D personnel of the EUV LLC Alliance have published hundreds of papers, greatly advancing the research progress of EUV technology and proving the feasibility of EUV lithography technology.

But just when the fruit was about to mature, the EUV LLC Alliance was magically disbanded.

The achievements of the alliance were divided by Intel and AS-ML. From the beginning of the century when the alliance was disbanded to 1010, AS-ML absorbed the alliance legacy and successfully produced the first EUV lithography machine, the NXE3100 EUV lithography machine, with the strong help of American capital and the government, and delivered it to TSMC for chip foundry production.

So far, the global silicon-based semiconductor industry has been led by AS-ML, and the lithography machines it produces every year are the treasures that major semiconductor companies are competing for.

America has also successfully achieved its goal of controlling the semiconductor field.

With the obedient and considerate AS-ML on the left hand, it can easily curb any semiconductor chip foundry company in the world. With capital-dominated Intel on the right hand, it controls the core CPU of every computer.

Even if there is a newcomer AMD later, tracing back to the source, the technology mastered by AMD is also the fruit of America, so it is also a family.

In order to cut off the development path of latecomers, AS-ML even proposed a "Customer Joint Investment Plan" in 1012, referred to as CCIP.

In simple terms, it is to accept the capital injection of customers, and customers become shareholders and have priority ordering rights.

This not only enables AS-ML to have a large amount of funds for research and development, but also guarantees customers' priority use of advanced lithography technology.

The three leading companies in the semiconductor industry at that time: Intel, TSMC, and Hanxing, naturally responded one after another and dared not disobey.

Intel spent $4.1 billion to acquire a 15% stake in ASML, a Dutch chip equipment manufacturer, and invested another $1 billion to support ASML in accelerating the development of expensive chip manufacturing technology. TSMC invested 838 million euros to acquire about 5% of ASML's shares. Hanxing spent 503 million euros to purchase a 3% stake and invested an additional 275 million euros to jointly develop new technologies.

In the end, ASML not only obtained 5.3 billion euros in funds with 23% of useless shares, but also directly tied up the world's top three semiconductor leaders.

This is the history of the rise and fall of AS-ML's semiconductor empire. Judging from reports from all sides, it is full of magic and inspiration. American capital and Dutch founders are so just in promoting technological development, even "without asking for return."

And semiconductor manufacturers such as Intel, TSMC, and Hanxing have "shaken hands and made peace" to give money and resources to their equipment providers in order to allow their equipment providers to have better development.

It's just that the core of this story wrapped in beautiful narrative words is the hegemony of the United States.

Companies such as Intel, TSMC, and Korean Star, even if there is business competition, even if each of the three parties wants the other to go bankrupt and die, under the pressure of hegemony, they have to "generously donate" to AS- ML makes money.

October 23rd, early morning.

On the outskirts of Eenhoven, the fifth largest city in the Netherlands, is the headquarters of AS-ML, the world's largest semiconductor equipment manufacturer.

In a huge factory building that is tightly protected by security and the military, countless employees wearing dust-free work clothes are working in the workshop.

Even if it is 3:30 in the morning, this is not the working time that the "humanitarian West" should have.

The EUV light energy used by EUV lithography machines is extremely destructive, and strict lithography machines naturally need to be extremely sensitive when controlling this light. Precision material equipment.

Even because various molecules in the air can interfere with EUV light, many workshops in this huge factory are in a vacuum environment.

Peter Wen, CEO of AS-ML, was not lying in bed at this time.

He frowned and looked at the employees and machines outside the workshop with a gloomy expression.

He walked back and forth with his hands behind his back.

"Sir, please don't walk around outside the workshop. You should know that silence is required inside the factory."

Colson, the engineer in charge of a certain AS-ML lithography machine project, interrupted Peter Wen's actions.

Faced with these top engineers, AS-ML CEO Peter Wen naturally would not sing any dissent, feeling that the other party was offending his authority.

On the contrary, his attitude instantly changed to humility, and he apologized: "Please forgive me for being irritable. It is true that our competitors have given us too many unexpected 'surprises'."

As an engineer who can be responsible for specific projects at AS-ML, Colson is naturally not a loser.

He pointed to a workshop not far away and said: "One of the most critical parts of the EUV lithography machine, the reflector produced by Zeiss in Germany, needs to be extremely flawless, and the size of the flaw can only be calculated in picometers.

CEO, you should know that a nanometer is one millionth of a centimeter, and a picometer is one thousandth of a nanometer.

What is this concept?

If the area of ​​​​the reflector is the size of the entire territory of Germany, then the highest protrusion of the reflector cannot be higher than one centimeter. "

At this point, the engineer sighed.

He turned his head, looked to the east, and sighed: "In distant Daxia, they have only entered the precision industry for a short time, and now they have already made a photolithography machine that is not inferior to ours.

Xinguang Technology Company, a subsidiary of Jiuzhou Technology, has manufactured the SS1MB light source developed from steady-state micro-focusing. So where did Pudong Microelectronics obtain such a flat reflector?

There are also photoresist production processes, etching processes used by Jiuzhou Semiconductor, and how to adjust the engineering equipment in each link?

This is really a mystery that makes people wonder. "

At this moment, Colson no longer had the high spirits he had when he led the project.

When he was feeling emotional, besides the young Da Xia Cai, there was another figure that appeared frequently in his mind.

The common facial features of Asians are yellow and thin. Although they are serious about their work, they are dull, which makes people wonder whether this person's academic qualifications are fake.

"Dr. Colson, you are right. It's just that we can't achieve results in a short period of time in terms of legal affairs. Kyushu Technology's legal department is doing everything possible to obstruct us.

Moreover, there is currently only one SS1MB light source lithography machine produced by Pudong Microelectronics in Korea Hansung's factory. We cannot use lobbying methods to get Korea Hansung to hand over this lithography machine to us for disassembly and research.

And as far as I know, the factories that Kyushu Technology cooperates with Koryo Hansung, as long as they use Kyushu semiconductor production technology, have been controlled by Kyushu Security, and they are violently expropriating Koryo Hansung’s assets.

well……"

Faced with the "lament" of AS-ML CEO Peter Wen, Colson did not object.

He also gave serious advice.

"Sir, in fact, part of the reason why Jiuzhou Technology Semiconductor has been able to develop so rapidly is because they recruit many R&D personnel and engineers from us and our partner companies, such as TSMC and Intel.

Although Jiuzhou Technology found some loopholes and recruited some people who had not signed a non-compete agreement, this also shows that these people can lobby.

After all, they were able to leave their original company and go to a company that had no semiconductor business at all. The main reason must be money.

As long as we can give them higher salaries and benefits, we can definitely beat Jiuzhou Technology in terms of human resources.

And as long as we recruit these people back, we can get enough information from them, and even combine it with the optical technology of Korea Hanxing Factory to reversely crack the semiconductor technology of Kyushu Technology. "

After hearing Colson's suggestion, CEO Peter Wen's eyes lit up for a few seconds, and then dimmed again.

He shook his head and said in denial: "Since those people entered the Jiuzhou Science and Technology Park, our company, TSMC, Intel and even Korea Star, have also lobbied them, and even offered the temptation of project dividends and company options, but they have all been rejected.

Even the Legal Department of Kyushu Technology sued us internationally for these actions, saying that we intended to steal company secrets and Daxia Guojia secrets.

Our company’s legal department has also been busy with these cases over the years. And as far as we know, Jiuzhou Technology has signed a non-competition agreement with almost everyone participating in the project, and has paid out sufficient agreement subsidies on time.

Therefore, even though we had persuaded a few people to do so, in the end we were faced with the harsh non-compete agreement and sky-high liquidated damages. Even though we expressed our willingness to fund these people to pay the liquidated damages, no one dared to take that step. "

"Alas..." Colson sighed.

Then someone not far away sighed simultaneously.

Then someone else started to sigh.

A small rest room outside the workshop triggered a wave of sighs.

On this day, countless people in the AS-ML headquarters factory began to sigh.

Whether they are engineers who are "excellent in their skills", ordinary employees, or senior management of the company, no one looks good after reading the news.

Amidst the sighs, some Chinese people within AS-+ML also chose to resign.

Although they cannot enter companies such as Jiuzhou Technology and Pudong Microelectronics at this time, Xiaxin Technology is throwing olive branches around the world.

After just a few days of fermentation, AS-ML's stock price has fallen again and again, and it is impossible to watch it at all.

And the initiator of all this, Jiuzhou Technology, showed its hedgehog side when countless companies and institutions wanted to deal with it.

Huang Chaoren became one of the external spokespersons of Jiuzhou Technology.

On the stage, facing reporters with different hair colors, he used a large number of Internet slang for the first time as a senior executive of one of the world's top technology companies.

The words "Nima" and "Zhoucao" come up casually.

Anyway, the principle is one, to bombard all remarks that discredit Jiuzhou Technology.

Whenever he finished telling the actual information, he would definitely criticize the media outlets such as the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.

Even "false reports" and "slanders" are some of the reporters who are reluctant to stay here.

This is only due to the reliability and timeliness of intelligence sources. They often get trolled in the morning, and after reporting in the afternoon, they continue to come back to be trolled.

…

The director of the Institute of High Energy Physics of Xia Ke Academy has a rather feminine name, Wang Fang.

Who would have thought that under this somewhat plain female name is the face of a middle-aged Mediterranean man?

The physicist was explaining very patiently in front of a young man: "Building large scientific equipment is like whoever has a telescope and a microscope first, whoever gets the latest scientific things first, whoever does it will be the first."

The Jiangmen Neutrino Experiment is a large-scale international cooperation involving 19 countries and regions, which has been rare before. In recent years, whether it is the Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino Experiment, the Jiangmen Neutrino Experiment or the Large Ring Electron Positron Collider, our Institute of High Energy, Xia Ke Academy of Sciences, is gradually attracting the attention of the world's scientific research to Daxia. "